The total cost of Ohio State's roster was revealed, and it is both a massive number and puts a ton of pressure on the Buckeyes.
On Tuesday, the total cost of Ohio State's roster was revealed, and the numbers are truly staggering. This is not your father's NCAA, and these young men are making real money to play college football.
We have known that for a long time now, but seeing the numbers on paper is pretty insane. It further underscores that the way college football is set up right now is not a sustainable model and is quickly on the verge of a bubble bursting.
Until then, these athletes are going to cash in in a pretty significant way.
The total cost of Ohio State's 2026 roster is a total of $43.34 million. It is the third-highest total in all of college football training, just behind Texas ($47.9M) and Miami ($44.0M).
Some of the big numbers on the roster are obviously the stars of the team. Quarterback Julian Sayin commands a significant check at nearly $2.8M while Jeremiah Smith is cashing in for $5M. Both tackles are making just north of $1M, while the rest of the offense is making somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
On defense, defensive end Kenyatta Jackson is the high watermark at $1.5M, and the only other player making over $1M is defensive tackle transfer James Smith. Everyone else is making six figures.
Looking at this depth chart of player price tags is a very weird thing. These are not amateur players, these are no professionals. The positive to it is that they are getting compensated for what they are doing on the field, which is fantastic.
The negative is that their job is now pressure-packed. There are a lot of people who invested a lot of money into this program, and they expect to reach the highest levels of college football, that is, the National Championship.
If it wasn't enough pressure to play for Ohio State, add in the fact that the players are making millions of dollars, and they had better show up on Saturdays in the fall.
Ohio State is spending at the top of college football. They trail just two schools while having slight edges over teams like LSU, Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas A&M, and Alabama, just to name a couple.
The Buckeyes have their work cut out for them in 2026. They are being paid as champions; they are going to have the responsibility of bringing another one back to Columbus at the beginning of 2027.
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